About us

Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past was founded in 2004 with the aim of encouraging the process of dealing with the past and strengthening public dialogue on the traumatic historical events that marked the 20th century in Croatian and European societies. Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek, Centre for Peace Studies, Civic Committee for Human Rights and Croatian Helsinki Committee decided to found Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past in an attempt to encourage the process of dealing with the past and establishing factual truth about the war and to contribute to shifting of the discussion from the level of dispute over facts (the number of killed people, etc.) towards a dialogue on interpretations. Documenta is especially focused on the wartime suffering of individuals and social groups, and the victims of ideologically motivated violence in Croatia and the neighbouring countries.

Since its establishment Documenta contributes to the development of individual and social process of dealing with the past, in order to build sustainable peace in Croatia and the region by deepening the dialogue and initiating a public debate on public policies that encourage dealing with the past, collecting data, publishing research on war events, war crimes and violations of human rights, and monitoring war crimes trials at the local and regional level as a contribution to the improvement of court standards and practices in the war crimes trials. Documenta has worked on building democratic pluralism and a society of peace with a broad network of public institutions, non-governmental organisations and media in Croatia and abroad. Documenta's activities consist of three basic programmes: (1) Documenting; (2) Public dialogue and public policies; and (3) Improving judicial standards and practice.